The Los Angeles City Council on Friday unanimously approved plans for a privately financed $250-million stadium in Exposition Park, clearing the way for the expansion Los Angeles Football Club to begin construction on the most expensive soccer-specific project in Major League Soccer history.
The 22,000-seat stadium will be the centerpiece of a 15-acre complex that will include a conference center, restaurants and a soccer museum. It will be built next to the Coliseum on the site of the 56-year-old Sports Arena, which held its final event in March.
“It’s been in Ohio as early as the mid-1850s at least, brought in as an ornamental plant because of its unique foliage and white flowers,” Gardner said. “It was actually planted in people’s landscaping, and it has been spreading.”
“This is precious real estate and this is a precious place,” Tom Penn, LAFC’s president and the man who has been sheparding the project for the team, told the council. “The vision is to unite this diverse city around their love of the game…. We pledge a promise to do you proud.”
Construction, including the demolition of the Sports Arena, is scheduled to begin this summer with the target of getting the stadium finished in time for LAFC’s first home game in March 2018.
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